They rattle in my head
The noise of those wheels
As you drag my bags down your stairs
Your disciplined steps finding their way to your car
Your loyalty to organisation helping me pack
A facade for holding back our combined grief
Mine, of leaving one home to arrive at another
Yours, the impossibility of my staying
Through sterile airports, through familiar faces to be met again
Through homecoming and remembering what I left two years ago
Through numerous "hellos" and "it's been so long"
Your sad smile and hushed whispers is etched out most bold
The rains have arrived here, the streets are flooded
While it's the same crispy sun that greets you back there
Such ironic contrasts given the state of our minds
Would you exchange yours for mine?
Now, it's about time and distance
About narrowing our losses and counting our blessings
Taking stock of what could lie ahead
Sifting through those questions we dared not address earlier
I tell you, this has been some homecoming
To leave one that made life bearable in a foreign land
Only to return to another I seemed so sad to leave
If only I could exchange mine for yours.
